Wednesday, 27 January 2016

I have managed to finish painting my World Eater Assault squad mounted on Jetcycles this week. I had planned on doing more paimting, but I broke a tooth and then had to spend out good wargaming money on fixing it! Not sure which was more painful? ;)

The three army lists in the Slaves to Darkness book allow you to mount one squad per army in Mark 14 Bullock Jetcycles. This costs 110 points per Marine, and so the points paid are dependent on which army list you are using. World Eater squads are eight strong, therefore it's 880 point to upgrade. The lists do not specify which squad can be upgraded (unlike Chaos Steeds, Beast of Slaanesh, etc) and so I decided to choose an Assault squad as it seemed to suit them best. Also, I was running out of jump pack for all four Assault Squads.
The total cost of the squad, with an upgrade of Power Glove for the Sergeant, works out at 1,115. Of course that could increase with any addition of Grenades. So they are more a large battle squad, or misson specific use, even in the larger points Rogue Trader Armies.

Painting wise I painted them in the same manner as the rest of the World Eaters. I did however try to make them a little more colourful, and to make each of the 'Bloodletter Headed' renegades looks different from one another. As for the Jetcycles, I did consider a range of different colours to contrast against the red/black of the Renegades armour, but in the end went for a Khornate red as it seemed fitting.

Enjoy :)

Incoming!!!

World Eater Assault Squad mounted on Mk 14 Bullock Jetcycles.

I have used the Marines from the mounted Renegades range as riders, excpet for the Sergeant. I chose specific, slighty crouched legs, which seemed to fit on the cycles better. I wanted to have a majority of the Khornate 'Bloodletter Headed' Renegade in this squad as they are World Eaters, but also a few others to add some variety.

Squad Sergeant.

He is a mix of bits really. His legs are mounted Renegade ones, his body is that of a 1980's Citadel Chaos Knight, and his right arm is a RTB101 plastic Space Marine Power Glove.
I love the 'attitude' in his Skull face.

'Bloodletter Headed' Renegade.

The squad contains two special weapons; a Plasma Pistol, and a Hand Flamer. None of these weapons are present the actual models, and I did'nt want to hack them up. So, for the Plasma Pistol I dediced to paint the Bolt Pistol in a Plasma looking blue. I add the colour to the Renegade as well, for additional effect.

'Bloodletter Headed' Renegade, with a fire skull look to his head.

Renegade with lots of tubes in his armour.

Another 'Bloodletter Headed' Renegade, this time with a Skull face and more gold on his armour.

The last of the 'Bloodletter Headed' Renegades, with a dark look fron the black armour.

I painted it a little lighter than normal to give that 'biker black leathers' look.

Bare headed Renegade.

I like this miniatures and really wanted to add him to the unit as to me he just exudes the speed appropriate for Jetcycles.

Lastly, a one-eyed, horned, Renegade.

As mentioned earlier the unit has one Renegade armed with a Hand Flamer. So I picked this model as the stand-in as the Bolt pistol has a long barrel that to me suggests aflamer based weapon. I painted it orange to differentiate it, something I plan to do with all of thehand flamers in my Legions, so I can locate them at a glance and unify the look of them.

Ahem...

...I bought another Land Raider from e-bay.

This one only cost me £26, mainly due to the fact it had no guns. I'll tidy it up and either source some side Las-Cannons, or convert something up from Rogue Trader bits.

Next week will probably be more World Eaters. I am painting up Tactical squad, and have the Motor Bike Squad half painted on my desk.
I still need to make a start on the Officers of the Legion, the Terminators, and a series of general photographs of the all of the Legions. I'll see what I can get done of the next week.

Tuesday, 19 January 2016

I have had a bit of a break from blogging over the last fortnight. A busy time at work, coupled with that I have'nt been painting much meant that my blog has taken a little bit of a back seat. However I have still been buying items for the Tratior Legions, and I did manage to get some painting done.

I have been painting the World Eater Legion recently, and thought that I had finished all of the Tactical Squads required for the army. I had however miscounted, and still have two squads of eight Renegades to paint.

In addition I have started painting the mounts for two of the Assault squads. I have replaced the Space Marine Lizard mounts with Vincent Black Shadow Motorbikes for one of the squads. I did this as I wanted to use all ten of the mounts (the World Eater only have a need for eight), so have reassigned them to the Sons of Horus/Black Legion army. Also, I think Motorbikes fit the raw aggressive, thoaty roaring feel of the World Eaters better. The other squad is to be mounted on Mk14 Bullock Jetcycles. I have managed to mostly paint the Jetcycles and motorbikes, with only a little left to do, leaving only the riders to paint.

Apart from the Assault Squad mounts, I decided to paint a tank, specifically a Land Raider. I have always liked the Khornate Land Raider in the 'Slaves to Darkness' book (see photograph below), and despite my wish not to get involved in painting tanks yet, the army did'nt seem right without one painted up. I tried to keep the paint scheme as close the book as much as possible. I might still add a flag or Khornate rune on the doors.

This focus on a Land Raider led me to look on e-bay for another. I already have one Land Raider for the World Eaters, one for the Emperor's Children, and one which will need to be re-paint for either the Sons of Horus or Ultramarines. So after a little look, I found one in mint condition in box (albeit a 1994/2nd Edition box) and still on the sprues for £50. It might seem a little pricey, but they are becoming a little hard to find in good condition, and also in comparison the Forgeworld Proteus is £88. Not sure which Legion will benefit from this addition, perhaps the Emperor's Children as I could paint it in pastels like some of the Slaaneshi Marines will be? As it's complete and in great condtion, it might go to the Ultramarines.

Enjoy :)

The photograph of the Land Raider on page 165 of 'Slaves to Darkness'.

I always liked the red of the Land Raider hull, and the ruddiness of the tracks.

I chose the old and slightly more battered Land Raider I owned for the World Eaters.

I re-painted the hull and tracks with GW Evil Sun Scarlet (the new version of GW Blood Red) over a black undercoat. For the hull I then gave another coat of red for fuller coverage and depth, and then highlighted with a mix of red and orange. Then the whole thing recieved a thinned down black paint wash.

For the tracks, to get that ruddy look, I drybrushed GW Mournfang Brown (the new version of Bestial Brown) lightly over the tracks. Then I drybrushed silver over that, before giving the whole thing a coat of thinned down black paint.

Rear view.

One of the problems of using this old battered Land Raider was that the top door hatches were missing. So I added a bile of bones fron the 1980's Night Horrors ranges to cover the hole, and to suggest the collected bones of their enemies.

On the painting table! Eight MK14 Bullock Jetcycles, eight Vincent Black Shadow Motorbikes, and one of the two remaining Tactical squads.

The four Landraiders! The two purple ones are left over from my halted attempt at painting the Emperor's Children some years ago. The paint is'nt that thick so they can be re-painted or stripped if needed.

Land Raider, mint in box.

The box had at sometime been damaged, but the kit inside was fine.

Instructions on how to build.

Close up. It's been over 25 years since I assembled one of these!!!

Sprues!!!

Lovely, lovely sprues :)

No idea what the next update will be on. I do want to take photographs of each of the Legions so far to give an impression of the crazy project I have started. I do also want to get some proper amount of painting done as well.

Friday, 1 January 2016

The gathering of forces for the Rogue Trader era World Eaters has relentlessly continued over Christmas and New Year. I had considered posting a review of the year of 2015, but wanted to update on the World Eaters. For anyone interested in my 2015, there be Goblins, lots of Goblins! :)

Anyway, since my last update, which has been delayed due to a busy time at work, I have completed the rest of the first Devastator squads, and fully painted a second. Also I have completed the last two of the footslogging Tactical Squads, and a Medic.
This completes the foot slogging part of the World Eaters, apart from the various officers. I have just started painting the two Jump Pack equipped Assault Squads. After that there are the Officers to complete, as well as the two mounted Assualt, one squad on Jet Cycles, the other on the Space Marine Riding Lizards (counting as Chaos Steeds).

...and then of course there are the Terminators!

I will be photographing each of the Legions in turn. They obviously will not be painting by then, but it will in order to give an idea of the scale of the Rogue Trader project, and the grandeur of the forces of the Tratior Legions. I might even get my Rogue Trader Ultramarine Legion organised too!

Enjoy. :)

Two Devastator Squads, and two Tactical Squads, and a Medic.

There are four or five miniatures in this update which were in the last update, but I have re-included them here as there were part of the above batch of squads.

A Tactical Squad advances throught the smoke of battle!

The first of the Tactical Squads

First off are two Chaos Renegades that technically are'nt, but are two normal Space Marines with Chaos backpacks. As mentioned in previous updates, I have added a few Space Marines to the Chaos Legions add variety, suggest less mutated armour/Renegades, and to add a little extra bulk to the armies.

Renegades with bolters.
The one on the right has been given a Rogue Trader era Normal Space Marine backpack, for the same reasons as I have added normal Marines to the Legions.

Bolter Marine and Missile Launcher.
I gave the Missile Launcher Marine a 'bare metal' look to his armour as it looked quite medieval. The more astute might notice a rogue spot of red paint on his left shoulder, something I missed until photographing, but has now been covered. :)

More bolter Marines.
I think the black helmet gives a much darker and sinister look to this miniature.

Rear view of the above two Renegades to show their normal Space Marine backpacks and how they look of the Renegades.

The second Tactical Squad.

A skull faced Marine on the left, with another normal Space Marine sergeant on the right. I gave the sergeant a black helmet and tubing to give a much darker look.

More Renegades with bolters.

Yet more bolter armed Renegades, both from the Khorne range of Renegades.

A slightly damaged Renegade on the left (he is missing the tops of his horns), and a Missile Launcher armed Khornate Renegade.

The first Devastator Squad.

For the two Devastator Squads I chose a Power Glove upgrade for the Sergeant, and for the Missile Launchers to be upgraded, one to a Heavy Plasma Gun, the other to a Las-Cannon. Both will give a bit more variety in the look of the squads, as well as providing more verstility on their combat roles. The Las-Cannon, with the strength 9 will be better at shooting at vehicles and taking down power fields. The Heavy Plasma Gun adds a sustained shot attack to the force, with a template weapon useful for killing vehicles and troops.

I have enough Missile Launchers in the army in the Tactical Squads anyway.

I did'nt upgrade the Heavy bolters to Heavy Webbers as I like Heavy Bolters.